For many New Zealanders, the words “Jesus is good news” are far more difficult to hear than Christians sometimes realise. This difficulty is not primarily theological. It is deeply personal.
The findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care revealed that many children, young people, and vulnerable adults experienced abuse and neglect while in the care of faith-based institutions. Survivors spoke not only of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, but also of profound spiritual harm caused by those who represented God and the Church.
For many survivors, Christianity is associated not with hope and healing, but with pain, betrayal, silence, and broken trust. When this happens, it becomes difficult to separate Jesus from the actions of those who claimed to follow him.
This presents a significant challenge for the Church. Simply telling people that Jesus is good news is unlikely to be persuasive when their experience of Christianity has suggested otherwise. People evaluate the credibility of faith not only through what we say as Christians, but through what we do.
The Credibility Gap
The New Testament presents Jesus as one who stood with the vulnerable, challenged oppressive systems, welcomed those who had been marginalised, and confronted the misuse of power. Yet many survivors experienced the opposite within institutions that bore his name.
The result is a credibility problem. Not because the teachings of Jesus are flawed, but because Christians have sometimes failed to embody them.
This is why social justice is not a distraction from the mission of the Church. It is central to it. Throughout scripture, care for the vulnerable is not optional. Justice, compassion, mercy, reconciliation, and restoration sit at the heart of God’s concern for humanity.
If we want people to understand the good news of Jesus, we must demonstrate it. Trust will be rebuilt as people experience faith-based organisations that protect the vulnerable, strengthen communities, challenge inequity, and place human dignity at the centre of their decisions.
Showing Rather Than Telling
At its best, Christian mission has always involved both words and actions. Yet there are times when actions must come first. In communities where trust has been broken, people may need to see tangible evidence of God’s love before they are willing to hear explanations about it.
At The Bishop’s Action Foundation, we are one example of what this can look like. Our work begins not with recruitment into church programmes, but with responding to community need, challenging inequity, building local capacity, and supporting initiatives that create lasting social change.
Social justice is not a tool for evangelism. It is simply what faithfulness requires. Yet, ironically, this may also be one of the most powerful forms of evangelism, and one that is particularly important for our nation at this time. When people encounter Christians genuinely committed to justice, reconciliation, and human flourishing, they encounter a different expression of faith from the one sometimes portrayed in public debate or remembered through painful experience.
The stories of those harmed by faith-based institutions must continue to be heard, and truth-telling, accountability, and redress remain essential. But every time a faith-based organisation addresses homelessness, strengthens families, supports young people, advocates for equity, or helps communities thrive, it provides a glimpse of what Christianity is supposed to look like.
Faith Made Visible
There is a powerful consistency running through scripture about the relationship between faith and action. In Micah 6:8, the choice and order of the words matter. God’s people are called to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Justice is something we do, mercy something we love, and both are grounded in a humble walk with God. Faith, in this picture, is a way of living in relationship with God that becomes visible in the way we treat other people.
James makes essentially the same argument when he says that faith without works is dead. In James 2:14-26, genuine faith takes material form in our response to the needs of others. Jesus takes the principle further still by overturning conventional ideas about status and power. In Luke 22:27, he asks who is greater, the person sitting at the table or the person serving it, before placing himself among his disciples as “the one who serves.”
Taken together, Micah, James, and Jesus present a remarkably coherent picture: faith acts, love serves, and true greatness gives itself away. Social justice, therefore, is not an optional social programme attached to the Church’s spiritual mission. It is one of the places where faith becomes tangible.
The Church as the Hands and Feet of Jesus
If we believe that Jesus brings healing, hope, justice, and restoration, then we must actively participate in bringing those things into the world. This means engaging with the real challenges facing communities, standing alongside people who have been marginalised, confronting injustice, and choosing service over self-preservation.
This matters profoundly for evangelism.
We do not pursue social justice in order to convert people. We pursue social justice because following Jesus requires it. But precisely because it demonstrates something of who Jesus is, social justice can make evangelism credible.
In a nation still grappling with the legacy of abuse in faith-based care, this may be one of the most important tasks facing the Church. For many people, the question is no longer whether Christians can explain the good news. The question is whether they can demonstrate it.
Faith-based organisations pursuing social justice, community transformation, and human flourishing help answer that question every day. Not by telling people that Jesus is good news. But by showing them.